


Like gasoline on fire

by Volt314



Category: Phineas and Ferb
Genre: Author Is Sleep Deprived, Character Study, F/M, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, Probably ooc, The Author Regrets Everything, bc reasons, ferb is a depressed teen, ferb is in love, vanessa is older deal with it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-12
Updated: 2020-09-12
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:01:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26432332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Volt314/pseuds/Volt314
Summary: The first time Ferb realizes, he is eleven. After that day all change and nothing really change at all.Or.Ferb is still wounded inside from the incident that took his mother and Phineas is the gasoline that keeps him on fire.
Relationships: Ferb Fletcher & Phineas Flynn, Ferb Fletcher/Phineas Flynn, Vanessa Doofenshmirtz/Ferb Fletcher
Comments: 6
Kudos: 31





	Like gasoline on fire

**Author's Note:**

> in my mind, Ferb is still wounded and low-key wants to die because he feels guilty (for his mum and for his feelings) and he loves Phineas but he is also his brother and he wants to protect him. And I don't know, Ferb grow up to be an incredibly cool smart punk and Phineas is low-key in love but he didn't understand feelings much.  
> (Aaand I hope this makes sense? I have no beta and this is not my first language (and I'm no good at it) and this is actually my first story since I was a teen, and I'm writing this rather than studying for my exams, and I'm really really sorry for this)  
> All types of review are welcome <3

Sometimes he catches himself doodling the perfect arch of the two cars bounds together, drawing the bloodied spider web of the front window in the margins of his books, sometimes he catches himself counting the seconds before the explosion in his mind, calculating the exact gasoline to fire ratio. 

Before Phineas, that was the only thing… the only thing that kept him sane. 

And then there was his brother. 

The happiest, smartest red ball of sunshine Ferb had ever seen, the most… fragile. 

Phineas was younger but nobody else did reach him like so before, not the adults, not the people in the university or in the hospitals, not the scientists, not his mum and dad. Ferb was all alone in the world, with the perfect arch of two cars bound together behind his eyes, with the pain of shattered glasses and iron under his skin. 

And then there was  _ his _ _ brother _ . 

Ferb was the shadow of Phineas and he was really,  _ really happy.  _ Alone no more. 

Phineas was less  _ tragic  _ about his  _ gifted kid _ and  _ lost boy's _ fate, he remembers his father, even more than Candace did, but he remembers him with pleasure, like a different kind of his usual candies, Phineas loved all kind of  _ different kind  _ after all, he loved  _ him _ from the first instant, after all. 

Ferb was eleven when Isabella (ten) kissed Phineas (nine) for the first time, his brother was totally oblivious at the time, happy believing that was a kind of  _ cinema kiss  _ for Isabella patch of  _ cinema filmmaker,  _ happy to  _ help  _ even. Isabella (and of all the present) exasperation wasn’t like  _ Ferb’s pain _ . 

That was the first time he cried in a long time, closed in the soundproof cabin in the garage he wept and sobbed and he didn’t even know  _ why.  _

That was the first time Ferb was put in front of the reality:  _ brothers bonds are not meant for forever. _

Ferb wasn’t one that asked and usually, Phineas  _ gets him. N _ ot that time obviously, Phineas was too off the ground (maybe  _ too _ young?) for that kind of stuff and… and in his  _ naivety,  _ Ferb  _ hoped  _ that they were destined to be different, like for all the other things. 

After Ferb’s first time (with Vanessa, when he was fourteen and she was nineteen) things changed. Slowly initially, Phineas stayed still in his world off the ground for a while, everyone changed before him and Ferb loved and hated him more for that. 

Phineas was still  _ his,  _ however _.  _ Still, the one who did understand him the most, still the only one ready to stop his mental countdown before the explosion. 

Phineas was still the one who hugged him tight after all his nightmares and Vanessa simply  _ wasn’t so fucking burning on his skin, like gasoline on fire _ .

One year later the police station called in the middle of the night and Laurence Fletcher bailed his wasted and bloodied son out of prison, speechless and for the first time in  _ years  _ scared to death for the wellbeing of his excessively smart son. Ferb wasn’t crying, white-faced and shivering but not… not scared. Not remorseful. 

“ _ What happened, Ferb?” _

“ _ I’m sorry _ ”

Laurence shuddered at that tone, too cold, too distant… like… like  _ before, _ but they went home and Phineas was yelling and crying and Ferb was  _ yelling _ too. For the first time burning and sincere and painful to hear but Laurence breathed again because  _ someone  _ got his most loved one when he wasn’t enough to.

It didn’t happen again. Ferb tattooed in his skin all the words he wasn’t capable to say and Vanessa kept his head out of the water when he was barely standing during they usual nights out. Phineas kept his heart warm. His skin on fire. 

The redhead changed after that night too. A more visible change, obviously, because Phineas was  _ all light and sparks,  _ but a change nonetheless. 

__ They returned to spend their time  _ getting  _ each other, returned that easy air of their childhood like their first fight was nothing but aftershock, this time, however, both  _ mature enough _ . Ferb didn’t learn to ask but did learn to speak, a bit. Nothing obvious for everyone than Phineas.

_ But a change nonetheless. _

They learned to be separated, ironically. Learned to follow their own passion without choking the other’s own. They learned to  _ listen _ and watch the other more carefully __ because things were more complicated than when they were actually kids. 

Ferb left for college with agonizing pain in the chest and a kiss on the lips of his sleeping brother. A goodbye kiss. 

Vanessa was still his best friend, his friend with benefits, the one who did get his pain and the only one whom he said the truth – one night in the dark of her bedroom, with the smoke of his cigarette and the reeks of alcohol and sex and blood that marked the sheets, she needed only to ask him  _ why. – _

Their second fight caught everyone out of surprise. Everyone was sure that he and Phineas would have attended the same college, both  _ excessive smart  _ for their own good, both  _ so clever and gifted and savant _ . Nobody understood the difference between them, nobody. And Phineas was so damn  _ naïve  _ and he  _ loved him so much.  _

“ _ YOU’LL TROW AWAY YOUR POTENTIAL THERE!” _

_ “I DON’T CARE! I WANNA BE WITH YOU-” _

_ “I WANT YOU TO BE YOURSELF!” _

__ Because _ I love you  _ was always quiet in their conversations. Phineas kissed Isabella in front of him the week before and they cuddled for hours in the back garden but Ferb was certain his  _ brother  _ loved him  _ so much.  _

_ He loved and hated him more for that.  _

With Candace out of the picture (in her white fence house with his loved Jeremy and their future 2.5 kids), dinner time was pretty quiet even when Ferb was home for the holidays. His words, because of that, were so much loud.

“ _ …you’ll love all the people there. You… you’ll be really too young for some things. I promise”  _ Linda put her hand over the trembling one of Ferb while Laurence caressed the red locks of his younger and on the verge of tears son. 

Ferb forgot to speak - it did happen often when he was watching Phineas, too much to say and not enough word at all - when he let the old piece of blue paper slip across the table. Phineas' eyes were red and confused and surprised for a while, he didn’t ask if not with a look. (Even Phineas sometimes did forget to speak).

“ _ What’s it, kiddo?”  _ Laurence was not so patient, much more like his daughter than like his sons.

“ _ The blockhouse, the first… I- believed this was lost in the old house” _

“ _ Oh, Ferb. It was the drawing you saved from the water, I remember this! You were so upset, we spent the night drying it, trying to not wake up you guys, that was the first time Ferb speak with me, dear, remember?”  _ Linda remembered fondly that day, Ferb remembered to be so frightened, totally lost. The countdown going mad in his head. His skin icy…  _ for the rain and the wind and the screams and the certainty to be alone in the world.  _

“ _ It’s only half of it, Ferb” _

_ “I’ll have the other half, here, tonight”  _ Phineas eyes become bright and then wet and then he was hugging Ferb tight. Ferb’s skin was on fire. 

Phineas cried a lot during all the making of his first tattoo – black ink on white and then red skin, Ferb almost lost his control at the whimpers. 

The redhead was fast asleep in the chair beside him even before Mark had put ink on the first third of Ferb’s half of blueprint. 

Ferb was awake for the rest of the time, entranced by the ink over his brother's chest. 

“ _ It’s painful?” _

_ “Uh?” _

_ “The tattoo. You usually sleep during this” _

_ “Oh… it’s… always painful”  _ But Ferb was watching Phineas. His red locks on his tears-stained eyes, Ferb’s  _ heart _ tattooed like a blueprint on his own chest with reddened straight shapes and numbers instead of blood and veins. 

_ Ferb never stopped counting for the explosion but that night he let the desire of being dead behind his back, the skin hot and burning of his chest not for the fire of gasoline  _ but for the certainty that  _ that bond was meant for forever.  _


End file.
